WawonaNews.com - January 2017

​ Swinging Bridge, Wawona - January 8

​ Swinging Bridge, Wawona - Jan 3, 1997

​ South Fork of the Merced River - January 8

Flat Rock (courtesy of Gary Wuchner)

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​YOSEMITE-WAWONA ELEMENTARY CHARTER SCHOOLBoard of Directors Meeting

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017 at 6:00 PMWawona Elementary School7925 Chilnualna Falls RoadWawona, CaliforniaAGENDA CALL TO ORDERROLL CALLMONTHLY ITEMS AND FINANCIAL REPORTSCONSENT AGENDANOTE: The Board will be asked to approve all of the following items by a single vote, unless any member of the Board or of the public asks that an item be removed from the consent agenda and considered and discussed separately.Approval of agendaApproval of minutes of the regular meeting, December 13, 2016Financial reportsMonthly approval of warrants (Action needed)Financial ReportPayroll Report HEARING OF PERSONS WISHING TO ADDRESS THE BOARDThe public may address the Board on any matter pertaining to the school that is not on the agenda. There will be no Board discussion and no action will be taken unless listed on a subsequent agenda. ACTION ITEMSApprove the continuation of lapsed Board positions for chairman and secretary.Approve 2015-16 audit report submitted on December 15, 2016.Approve 2016-17 ADA P1 Report.Use Professional Development funds to reimburse employee Jessica Stanphill for substitute credential permit ($102.50) and teacher examination ($85).

INFORMATION ITEMS BOARD MEMBER COMMENTSSTAFF REPORTSL CAP Update- Student safety training – completed Wednesday, 12/14/2016 – Chad AndrewsSeveral inquiries regarding enrollment for the 2017-18 school year / waiting list2017-18 transportation, calendar, minutesNEXT MEETING DATECLOSED SESSION Personnel/Negotiations/LitigationNOTE: The Board will consider and may act upon any of the following items in closed session. Any action taken will be reported publicly at the end of the closed session as required by law.Employee Negotiations (Gov. Code 54957.6)Personnel (Gov. Code 54957)Renegotiation of staff contracts.

RECOVENE IN OPEN SESSION: ANNOUNCE CLOSED SESSION ACTIONSADJOURNMENT

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​All roads leading into Yosemite Valley are closed due to forecast heavy rains and flooding

Jan. 7 - All roads leading into Yosemite Valley will close today at 5:00 pm in anticipation of a significant winter storm moving into the region early tomorrow morning, Saturday, January 7, 2017. There will be no visitor services available throughout the storm. Visitors intending to visit Yosemite National Park are highly encouraged to monitor weather reports and check road conditions before departing. These closures are being implemented to ensure the safety of park visitors and employees during the coming storm. Yosemite Valley is closed to visitation. Hetch Hetchy, Hodgdon Meadow, Crane Flat, and Wawona areas are open (and will remain open, conditions permitting).

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​​Yosemite Rangers Eye River as Storm Heads to California

FRESNO, Calif. - CBSNews- Rangers at Yosemite National Park stood watch Friday along the Merced River flowing through the scenic valley on alert for weekend flooding as stormy weather heads to California, officials said.

A combination of heavy rain and snow above 9,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada are expected over the weekend to trigger runoff, overflow foothill streams and rivers. Wind gusts could knock down power lines from falling trees.

On the coast, forecasters anticipate the storm surge from the Pacific - called an atmospheric river - to dump up to eight inches of rain from Sonoma to Monterey counties, and up to a foot in isolated places in the Santa Cruz mountains. Forecasters warn of mudslides on the Central Coast hard hit this summer by scarring wildfires.

The heavy rains come as California enters a sixth year of drought, starting in October with more rain falling than in three decades, mostly in Northern California. Los Angeles is experiencing the wettest winter in six years, forecasters say. On Friday, all roads leading to Yosemite Valley will close at 5 p.m., according to the National Park Service. “Heavy rain may cause significant flooding and other impacts,” a National Park Service alert said. “Yosemite Valley will be closed to visitation on Friday, January 6, at 5 pm. Hetch Hetchy, Hodgdon Meadow, Crane Flat, and Wawona areas will remain open, conditions permitting.” Officials say that the closure is expected through at least Sunday. Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said visitors should be aware of recent wet weather causing hazardous conditions, such as icy roads and falling debris. Rangers are keeping an especially close eye on Pohono Bridge, which crosses the Merced River deep in Yosemite Valley. Richards said that flooding there starts when the water level reaches 10 feet. On Thursday, the watermark hit just four feet.

A large storm in 1997 flooded Yosemite Valley, closing the park for two months and washing out roads, lodging and campgrounds. Rangers don’t expect damaging conditions like those 20 years ago, officials said.

Officials in Santa Cruz told residents to stay off the roads this weekend and hunker down by stocking up on groceries and batteries. They’ve set up sand bag stations for residents.

“We’re giving them a shovel and the sand and showing them how to fill them up,” said Jason Hoppin, a Santa Cruz County spokesman. “We haven’t seen rain like this in a long time.”

The Truckee River, which flows from Lake Tahoe and through Reno, is forecast to rise to its highest point in more than a decade, according to the National Weather Service, which has issued a flood warning.

​Yosemite National Park may close due to heavy rains, floods

Fresno Bee - Jan. 4

Significant floods could cause the closure of Yosemite National Park in the next few days, according to a press release from park officials Wednesday, Jan. 4.

Yosemite National Park may undergo an emergency closure in the next few days as a forecast for substantial rainfall could push the Merced River into its flooding stages.Through a release issued Wednesday, park officials said they’ll monitor forecasts and decide in the next few days whether the park can remain open safely to guests. But those with plans are advised to consider alternate arrangements within the next few days, as the park’s closure remains a possibility.

In January of 1997, a massive flood caused devastation to all aspects of the park, forcing its closure until two months later. The park has made improvements to roads and facilities in that time, according to the release.​For updating road and weather conditions in the park, call (209) 372-0200 and press the number 1, or go to www.nps.gov/yose.​Staff report

​Solvang Man Takes Opposition to Yosemite Name Changes to the Internet​ Will Etling draws legal fire from national park's new concession operator, but vows to continue web page

Will Etling of Solvang created the website majesticyosemitehotel.net to voice his objections to the name changes for historic structures in Yosemite National Park. (Courtesy of Will Etling)

By Tim Sheehan, The Fresno Bee | December 29, 2016 | 11:23 a.mWill Etling of Solvang believes he’s speaking for countless Yosemite National Park visitors who fondly recall the grandeur of The Ahwahnee, the hotel that was renamed the Majestic Yosemite Hotel in March because of a trademark dispute between the National Park Service and former park concessionaire Delaware North Cos.But the hotel’s new concession operator, Aramark, was not amused by Etling’s means of expressing dismay over the loss of the historic name.

​Etling, a web developer, registered the domain name “majesticyosemitehotel.net” and created a web page earlier this year that bluntly criticized the name change: a full-screen photo of the hotel against its backdrop of Yosemite’s dramatic cliffs – with large text that until recently read: “It’s called the Ahwahnee, you (expletive)s.”Etling grew up with annual family trips in the summers to the beloved park and occasional winter visits to the grand hotel formerly known as The Ahwahnee.He says he registered the dot-net domain name and launched the page to lament the loss of a name that paid tribute to the Native Americans who once inhabited Yosemite Valley.It didn’t take long for an attorney for Aramark, after learning of the website’s existence, to swing into action, asking Etling to change the language on the page and to give up the domain registration entirely.“As you can imagine, this language damages the unique and historic heritage of the hotel, and its association with the Park, and the overall reputation of the hotel and the Park as a whole,” wrote trademark and copyright attorney Nicole McLaughlin, a partner in the Philadelphia office of Duane Morris LLP, which handles trademark issues for Aramark, in a Dec. 21 letter to Etling.

Will Etling with his son, Mercer, at Yosemite Falls. The Solvang resident has created a website voicing his opposition to name changes for some of the national park’s iconic structures. (Courtesy of Will Etling)

“Accordingly, as a steward for the National Park Service, we request that you remove this language from the site and agree not to post any further derogatory or disparaging text,” McLaughlin wrote. “In addition, we ask that you agree not to renew the registration of the domain name when the registration term expires.”After receiving the letter by email, Etling changed the page’s headline to drop the profanity and reduce the text size: “It was called the Ahwahnee.”The page now also includes links to articles about the history of the hotel and its name, and about the Ahwahneechee people.Despite the letter, Etling says he plans to renew the dot-net domain registration next month and keep the site and its “Ahwahnee” history links alive.Etling registered the domain name in January.“When I saw earlier this year that Delaware North and the Park Service couldn’t seem to come to terms with the whole trademark thing, and the park announced they were going through with the name change and that the new name of the Ahwahnee would be the ‘Majestic Yosemite Hotel,’ I thought it was incredibly sad,” Etling said.Etling discovered that “majesticyosemitehotel.com” was already taken by Aramark. But the dot-net version was available, and for a few bucks, Etling registered it through the domain registration and hosting firm FastDomain Inc.“The names ‘Ahwahnee,’ ‘Wawona’ and other names in the park were chosen to attempt to honor the native people of that region,” Etling said. “I thought if I want to raise some awareness and keep it in people’s minds, I’d just grab the dot-net name so this issue doesn’t slide off into the ether. … It’s a way of educating people.”Etling acknowledged that his original disparaging reference was born of his frustration.“I have a young son, and I had mixed feelings about the crude language,” he said. After receiving the letter, “I took it off; I thought it better served as a source of information.”However, Etling added, “it didn’t say that Aramark were (expletive)s, but they took offense.”David Freireich, Aramark’s senior director of corporate communications, says it was customers who took offense.“We were alerted to this website by several concerned guests who found it offensive,” Freireich said in an email Wednesday. “As concessionaire for Yosemite National Park, we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the property and the guests we serve, and requested that the content be removed. It has since been edited to remove the offensive content.”The hotel, which opened in July 1927, will celebrate its 90th anniversary next year, regardless of the name.For Etling, the wholesale name changes to landmarks such as the Ahwahnee and Wawona hotels, Curry Village and the Badger Pass Ski Area – names that Delaware North registered as trademarks even though the historic names predated the company’s tenure as the park concessionaire from 1993 into 2016 – is personal.The Wawona Hotel was renamed the Big Trees Lodge; Curry Village is known as Half Dome Village and the Badger Pass Ski Area is billed as the Yosemite Ski and Snowboard Area.“At least once a year, my parents would pile my sister and I in the car and we’d go camping in the summer in Yosemite, and in the winter sometimes,” he said. “We would wander around The Ahwahnee and see the giant fireplaces and the spectacular views.”The family stayed at the grand hotel just once, “right around Christmas, and that’s one of our happiest shared family memories,” Etling added. “The idea that because of this dispute, because of people being unable to find a way to continue to honor those traditions, that they were willing to throw all that aside for financial reasons, was really upsetting.”Despite the legal saber-rattling by Aramark’s attorney over Etling’s registration of the dot-net domain, the company has not bothered to build a page on the majesticyosemitehotel.com domain it registered on Jan. 13, just three days before Etling registered the dot-net version of the name.Instead, Freireich said, “the primary website for booking reservations is www.travelyosemite.com.”A search through GoDaddy.com, a domain registration service, reveals that as of earlier this week the “majesticyosemitehotel” name was available for registration under a range of other domain suffixes, including dot-org, dot-info, dot-co, dot-us, dot-biz, dot-tv and more, at first-year registration costs ranging from $1 to $40.The dust-up raises questions about “cybersquatting,” a practice in which someone registers an internet domain to profit from a company’s trademark, typically with the intent of selling the name back to the business at a profit.According to the 1999 federal Anti-Cybersquatting Piracy Act, however, a court may consider whether registering a domain name and establishing a website falls under “legitimate noncommercial or fair use,” including comment, criticism or parody, as a factor in determining whether a domain was registered in bad faith.“There are probably all sorts of things (Aramark) can throw at me, but they haven’t even bothered to do anything with their dot-com site,” Etling said. “This is satire. It’s parody. I’m not claiming to be the Majestic Yosemite Hotel or The Ahwahnee. It’s a dot-net, so I’m surprised people are even stumbling upon it.”While Freireich did not directly address a question from The Bee about whether Aramark plans to put to use its dot-com domain or leave it empty, he added in a follow-up email that “the profanity was our sole concern” with Etling’s website.

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​ Merry Christmas, Wawona!

​ Historic Picnic Table at Wawona Maintenance Yard

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The picnic table placed on Sentinel Dome for the Obama family when they visited the park last summer is now in the Wawona Maintenance Yard by the river.

​​ Good News from WAPOA

Melinda Barrett from the Mariposa County Resource Conservation District just informed us that they got the grant for money from the state, to help homeowners get back some of the money spent on cutting down and removing dead pine trees. She should have the paperwork done by the end of January and will let us know after that, about how they will proceed in distributing the money. We (WAPOA) were included in the grant proposal, along with other homeowners in the county. So we will let you know as soon as we hear what’s next!

Happy Holidays!​

​​Winter Storm Warning - Flooding Forecasted

Dec. 15 - The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning and flash flood watch for today, Thursday through Friday, December 15, 2016 for the Yosemite region. Flooding will occur on the Merced River in Yosemite Valley. Two to four inches of rain are forecasted today through Friday, with some areas receiving as much as six inches. Heavy snow is predicted for the Sierra Mountains with as much as six feet along the crest. Rainfall during this storm will raise water levels in the Merced River over 14’, several feet above flood stage at the Pohono River Gauge.

Yosemite will implement road closures throughout Yosemite Valley, into and out of, beginning at 5 PM today, Thursday, December 15, 2016, and they will last overnight. Employees are asked to depart Yosemite Valley today prior to 4 PM. The scheduled roads closures are as follows:

HWY 140 from El Portal to Yosemite Valley will be closed at Park Line in El Portal. Wawona Road (HWY 41 North) from Wawona to Yosemite Valley will be closed at Chinquapin (access to Yosemite West provided)Northside drive exiting Yosemite Valley will be closed at Yosemite Valley Lodge for outbound trafficBig Oak Flat Road/HWY 120 will be closed at the HWY 140/120 junction, no entrance to Yosemite Valley from highway 120

Roads will be reevaluated for re-opening tomorrow Friday, December 16.

When traveling, be watchful of other hazards that could include mud and debris flow, falling trees, and rock fall. Fire burn scar areas may see elevated threat of debris flows during heavy rain as well.

The forecasted storm is serious and in order to help protect life and property, the park has initiated Park Directive 22: Flood Emergency Response and Evacuation Plan. An incident command team has been assembled to manage any evacuations, closures, and responses to flooding. Key to this plan is your knowledge of the evacuation procedures, flood prone areas, and your role. Please see attached directive.

We stress preparedness and caution. If you don’t need to travel, please don’t. If you do, make sure your vehicle is prepared for storm and winter driving conditions. At home and work, be prepared for any power outages and disruption of utility services. Watch and follow updated weather reports and communication from the incident command team.

We will monitor the weather forecast and current conditions and update you with specific information about park operations when available. Employees should check with supervisors about any changes to work schedules. Supervisors are encouraged to provide telework opportunities if possible. The employee hotline, 209-372-1186, will be updated in the event of closures or evacuations. Updates will also be posted to the Yosemite National Park Employees facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/ groups/310045132471091) as a secondary means of communication.

Your safety, and that of the public, are our highest priority. Please share this information with your coworkers and discuss your strategy for being safe.

The Return of the Mystery Stripes

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A few weeks ago we posted a close up photo of what appeared to be a mountain lion with stripes. It was hard t decipher whether those were stripes or just shadows, as the photo was taken during daylight. But these photos were taken at 4 AM, when there are no sun-related shadows and this mountain lion still appears to have stripes. We're looking for a volunteer to sit there and wait for the cougar so we can have an in-person account of the situation... Food will be provided. And for the volunteer also.